I am a realist.
People like to get upset with ESPN or other major sports media outlets when they ignore things like the Brett Favre story, Ben Roethlisberger being accused 24 times of strong arming or their own employees going Pee Wee Herman in their free time.
Here is the truth and you might not like it.
Some players will always get preferential treatment from certain networks.
The question is what is the reason? Some think it is racial, lets explore that.
Hypothetically speaking what if Deadspin’s story was about Lil McNabb as oppose to Lil Favre. What do you think would happened? McNabb has never had any off the field issues. Never been in any type of trouble. Has been a star player in the league for over a decade. He has had his drama and ups and down with the media, but for the most part, personally no one has any issues with McNabb. McNabb has been married for a long time and has never appeared on mediatakeout or had a stripper excuse him of having her love child.
Deadspin puts on their detective hat, finds a cute woman from the Eagles who says McNabb sent her pics and thirsty voicemails. They put out the voicemail recordings and release the pics.
At a press conference McNabb is asked by a reputable news source what he thought about the report and he goes with a non-denial, denial (watch the video above).
The only difference between Favre and McNabb is Favre is white and McNabb is black.
In your humble opinion is that on the 1st page of ESPN, SI.com or Foxsports.com?
My answer is a resounding:
NO
(For an alternative take Check Out TheNFLChick.com “ESPN The Bias Network”)
The reason is simple and I have an analogy to explain.
Have you ever been a “cam site”? It is where young ladies get on cam and have private shows for guys like Mark Zuckerberg (before he made like 282827737 billion dollars). To see the young ladies in the private shows you have to buy “credits”, credits are equal to time. 30 credits might get you ten minutes and so on and so forth.
When you credits are gone the show is over and she has moved on to the next simp.
The Media are the web models and the athletes are the simps. If you build up enough credit with the media they will continue to play along in your fantasy world, but once your credits are gone show is over.
My best example of that is Kobe Bryant. He had a ton of credits when he was accused of rape and he had to use every single one of them for the media to give him the benefit of the doubt which they did. He was never charged and in time has built back up his credits to the point he is virtually untouchable now.
I believe to this day if that was Allen Iverson that was charged he might still be in jail, simply off the media perception of him being guilty because of his reputation.
With Ben Roethlisberger his credits were high when he first was accused of strong arming, so most people ignored the first story. The second time once more details came out he had used up all his credits up. If he even winks at a woman the wrong way it would be posted on ESPN in 22 seconds.
Tiger Woods had numerous credits, but TMZ doesn’t care about mainstream media credits so as they systematically broke him down, he started to lose credits within the people who were protecting him. If you recall when it first happened none of the mainstream media reported on the affairs, it was only after enough of his credits were chipped away in the public that they pounced on him.
As you know Favre credits are long in the media, just recently people have started to take shots at him for his handling of his retirements, but not enough to the point they would expose him as being someone who sends packages pics to hot sideline reporters.
Brett Favre could never do that, he is BRETT FAVRE.
If this was Michael Vick or Vince Young it would be reported because they don’t have a lot of credits if any left.
If this was T.O. or Ocho Cinco there would be a NFL Live special.
Is there a racial component to all of this of course, but it has more to do with culture than racism. I understand why Michael Vick thought dogfighting was ok because I lived in the same type of areas that he has. I wouldn’t expect Roger Goodell or your average suburban white family to understand.
Guys with personalities like Ocho and T.O. are a dime a dozen in the black community, but when you are dealing with a media that is 90% white I wouldn’t expect them to understand why they act the way they do and that is where the disconnect comes from.
When you don’t understand something you are quick to ostracize and criticize it.
So don’t be surprise if this alleged Favre incident is swept under the rug while Ocho’s Pregnant Pigeon might become a story. That is just how the media works. My advice to athletes don’t worry about building up credit, just download the porn for free and do you, don’t worry about what the media thinks.
Trust me when I tell you this no athlete has unlimited credits, so if more evidence comes out about Favre, he will be taken down just like many others before him that thought they were untouchable.